For a split second, Matthew T. Hook appears to pause in midair, his muscles paralyzed by electricity, before plunging more than 8 feet to the ground, headfirst.
"We had to Tase him," Perry Township Police Officer Shawn Bean is heard saying on the videotape. "He's down on the ground. Send us a medic."
As a result of injuries from that fall, Hook, 23, suffered "serious and permanent brain damage" and remains "incompetent, severely disabled and hospitalized," according to a civil-rights lawsuit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court.
The suit filed by Hook's mother and guardian, Laurie Peabody of the Far North Side, alleges that police used "deadly excessive force" during the incident on Aug.8. Hook was shocked when he attempted to scale an 8-foot fence behind Dick's Sporting Goods, 6111 Sawmill Rd. He was driving a stolen SUV before fleeing on foot.
Hook, who struggled with drug addiction, is the father of a 2-year-old child.
Cincinnati attorney Alphonse Gerhardstein, representing Hook and his mother, said Bean ignored a clear warning by the manufacturer, Taser International. The Taser operating instructions warn that using the instrument on a subject on an elevated surface "may increase the risk of death or serious injury resulting from a loss of balance, fall or change of momentum."
"Officers know better than to Tase a nonviolent person who is standing on a fence," Gerhardstein said. "This tragedy could easily have been avoided and the arrest made without any threat to public safety."
The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, costs and attorneys fees. It was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Edmund A. Sargus of Columbus.
A Perry Township Police Department investigation cleared Bean of acting improperly. Police Chief Robert Oppenheimer told The Dispatch earlier this year, "I support the officer in the decision he made."
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH